Slimmed-down companies rethink office space

CUBICLE CULTURE

By Justin Berton |
September 8, 2009

Intel employees Abby Pontzer and Andrew Inman, on Wednesday August 26, 2009 in Santa Clara, Ca, work in one of the many common areas that are softly decorted and more inviting. Intel Corporation is on the cutting edge when it comes to office design, departing form the typical "cubicle-farm" designs found in many corporations.

Photo By Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Intel employees Mike Langberg and Kavita Aiyar work in the common area on Wednesday August 26, 2009 in Santa Clara, Ca. Intel is on the cutting edge when it comes to office design, departing form the typical "cubicle-farm" designs found in many corporations.

Photo By Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Intel employee Minal Lee, of divisional planning, on Wednesday August 26, 2009 in Santa Clara, Ca, work spaces are still divided but walls are much lower and more open to the rest of the staff. Intel is on the cutting edge when it comes to office design, departing form the typical "cubicle-farm" designs found in many corporations.

Photo By Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Intel employees, on Wednesday August 26, 2009 in Santa Clara, Ca, working in one of the several "flex" or shared areas. Intel is on the cutting edge when it comes to office design, departing form the typical "cubicle-farm" designs found in many corporations.

For workers who survived the latest round of layoffs in their San Francisco offices, the landscape can be a dreary sight: empty cubicles where co-workers once sat, whisper-quiet hallways and once-bustling conference rooms now eerily vacant.

Yet for local office designers, the new cubicle wasteland spells inspiration.

With the economic downturn forcing companies to lease unused office space, and an incoming workforce led by iPhone-toting millennials - those born in the late '80s and early '90s - the design trend toward high-density, communal spaces has been greatly accelerated, experts say.

"Now is the time companies are coming up with more effective ways to shed the extra space so people aren't sitting in cubicle graveyards," said Collin Burry, a principal designer in the San Francisco office of Gensler, the global architectural and design firm. "They're pulling people together for economic reasons, but as it turns out, that's also how a new generation likes to work - close to one another."

The gist: more shared work stations in close proximity and an emphasis on organic aesthetics and eco-friendly building materials.

From 'I' to 'we'

If the large corner office was once a status symbol to attain for Baby Boomers, it's become a symbol of contempt for the new working class.

"Office design is going from an 'I' to 'we' concept," Burry added. "Millennials would be miserable sitting in a closed office all day long."

During a televised skit, O'Brien stood in one of the vacant cubicles with a group of second-graders and asked, "Can you say 'lifeless environment'?"

Neil Tunmore, Intel's director of corporate services, said the company had reduced its workforce by 20,000 three years ago when executives began rethinking work space. In Santa Clara, the building was stripped to its shell, and at least one floor of cubicles was replaced with "community zones" for workers to plug in laptops, additional conference rooms, and new areas for collaborations.

The company ditched the blue and gray color scheme in favor of natural colors, wood finishes and natural light.

"The dour look was flat and tired," Tunmore said. "We're trying to attract the latest generation of workers."

Flurry of subleasing

Today, large companies in San Francisco such as Charles Schwab (500 to 600 layoffs this year) are moving workers closer together and subleasing the extra office space to generate cash. As of January, according to Studley, a local brokerage firm that represents tenants, about 2 million square feet of subleased office space is on the downtown market, the most since the recession that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. That space housed an estimated 10,000 workers two years ago.

Close quarters

Clark Sept, the co-founder of Business Place Strategies in Oakland, said every office presents a unique challenge for maximum efficiency depending on the industry, yet the benefits of close quarters are especially apparent for companies that toil in innovation, such as local startups and tech businesses.

At 1 Post St., international headquarters for the health care corporation McKesson, about 60 employees now work on each floor compared to 30 per floor two years ago, said Frank Robinson, vice president of corporate real estate.

Though McKesson's move predated the economy's dive, he said, the company has been forced to accommodate three generations of workers with three different workplace expectations.

Boomers still desire the entitlements of an individual working space; middle-aged workers (Gen X-ers) don't require as much space, yet still value a personal station; and millennials, who are unattached to personal space, are comfortable working from home or cafes and tend to view offices and high-walled cubicles as dead zones.

"There still is a place to go to do heads-down work," Robinson said of the redesigned headquarters. "But it's just not yours to keep."

Randy Howder, a design strategist at Gensler, said San Francisco's startup culture is home to many of the very mobile technologies that are making the offices of the past obsolete.

Shared desks

Howder said a recent tech client located on the Peninsula that shed office space after a round of layoffs went as far as asking the remaining employees to share desks, ignoring the old industry standard of one desk per employee. Research showed the client's employees worked at their individual desks only a few hours of the day, and the shared stations could save the company revenue.

"People are less likely to complain about the changes," Howder said, "because they're happy they still have a job."